Top Customer Engagement Strategies That Will Help Increase Revenue
There is a lot of buzz around customer engagement these days. And chances are, if you try to demystify and get down to what it’s all about, you’ll end up with more questions and more confusion.
When people talk about customer engagement, they start talking about customer experience, service, support, retention, and so many other concepts that it just gets more and more perplexing.
We know how it feels. You start with one question mark in your head, and you end up with so many more.
That’s why we’ll first get down to the basics and try to disentangle the mystery around customer engagement.
What is Customer Engagement?
We all hate definitions, but to understand something, it’s nonetheless essential to define it.
Let’s look at this definition by Hubspot that nails it and clarifies a lot of things.
Customer engagement is the process of interacting with your customers through a variety of channels and strengthening your relationship with them.
Though many people like to think of customer engagement as customer service or customer support, it’s not that. Customer engagement does include customer service and support, but it’s not exclusively that.
Excellent customer engagement starts from your initial interaction with the customer when they show an interest in your business, and it continues way beyond their purchase. It’s an on-going journey where you, as a brand, explain to your customers that you value their relationship with you, which is way beyond the transactional value.
With your interactions, you show your customers that you value them and not the money they spend on your business. Customer engagement is all about giving an excellent customer experience where your customers feel heard, get answers to questions, get their issues resolved, and feel an emotional connection to the brand.
Why Is Customer Engagement Important?
Because it increases your revenue.
Research from Gallup shows that a fully engaged customer generates 24% more revenue than an average customer.
Highly engaged customers spend more money, are loyal to your brand, and they become your brand advocates – all good reasons to invest in a good customer engagement strategy.
5 Simple But Effective Customer Engagement Strategies
Build Your Brand Voice
If you want your customers to engage with you, you should work on building a unique brand personality.
To build your brand personality, identify your target customer profile first. After you have identified your customer, the next step is to look at their needs and challenges. What challenges do they face and what requirements do they have? And how can you fulfill them?
By addressing those needs and challenges, you can make your brand more relatable to your customers.
Share Your Voice On Social Media
Your customers are spending time on social media, and so should you. Use an automated customer engagement tool to share your unique brand voice.
Instead of a generic business account, try to build personality in your social media account. Post content that aligns with your brand values and share similar messages.
Some brands like Wendy’s take on a sassy and humorous mode when interacting with their customers online. This makes them more memorable to their customers.
Offer a Superb Customer Experience
Excellent customer engagement is a result of good customer experience. From the moment your customer shows an initial interest in your business to the point where he completes a transaction – the customer experience should be outstanding.
There are different ways you can optimize your customer experience. Sharing a few pointers here…
Make the first impression count. Whether it’s a brick and mortar business or an online store, your customer should feel good the moment they visit you. Use the live chat in an online store and include videos on your webpage to make sure the customer understands what your business is about.
Personalize your customer’s experience. Ask a few questions in the beginning and then personalize their experience. Think of how Netflix does. With their algorithm, they find out what kind of shows their users prefer, and then they send out personalized lists of shows their users might be interested in regularly.
Empower your customer service team. Use the right customer engagement tool to deliver a seamless experience to your customers. If they are reaching out to get their problems solved, listen to them and answer them effectively and efficiently. Allow your customers to reach out to you through different channels instead of the traditional phone and email support. Research shows SMS is the fastest and most convenient way to offer customer support. Use SMS apps like Twilio plus, which integrates with the Freshdesk helpdesk platform and allows you to give quick and efficient customer service.
Think of different ways you can serve your customers. Every business is unique, and so is their customer.
Think Of Omnichannel Engagement
Don’t just depend on one channel when interacting with customers. There are so many places your customers like to hang out and so by engaging with your audience in all of those places will make sure you are not missing out on any opportunities.
Think of email, social media, SMS, live events, phone, and live chat when thinking of an omnichannel customer engagement strategy. To streamline your operations, you can use a functional CRM that integrates with different apps and makes it easy to engage with customers through various channels all on one platform.
Create Useful Content
By creating educational and useful content, you are giving something to your customers in reciprocity for their transactions and for their relationship with you. The more valuable your content, the higher your customer loyalty will be. Your content will become the reason for your customers to keep coming back. If you want help in content to increase your sales and conversions, then you can contact me.
